PROMPT ACTION

Wairarapa Times-Age, 17 November 1941, Page 6

PROMPT ACTION

AMERICAN SHIPPING PLANS Two Hundred Vessels to be Armed at Once AND EVENTUALLY 1600 FOR ATLANTIC ROUTES IMPORTANT BEARING ON NAVAL POSITION (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright.) (Received This Day, 11.15 a.m.) WASHINGTON, November 16. . United States Navy officials said it was proposed immediately to arm 200 merchantmen, all of which have been built since 1927, with special decks for gun mountings. Eventually the United States will be able to arm 1,600 ships for duty in \ the Atlantic.. Each ship will have a specially trained gun crew of twenty men from the Navy. The “New York Herald Tribune’’ says Administration circles view the decision to arm merchant ships and allow them to go to belligerent ports as serving notice on Japan that the United States is determined to resist the Axis and is in no mood for compromise. Apart from the moral aspect, observers see a practical effect in freeing important units of the British fleet for service in the Far East. They point out that average American warships can effectively serve as convoys in combat zones, automatically releasing modern British craft which can reinforce the squadron at Singapore. It is learned from a high naval source that the expansion of convoy operations envisions an extension of naval and air patrols and escorts all the way across the Atlantic, with the establishment of United States bases in the British Isles, or the joint use with Britain of bases already established. Other steps contemplated involve American convoys through the Straits of Gibraltar to Britain’s Mediterranean ports, thus reducing the time of delivery of material to Egypt.